The parents of Jarrod, Jamie and Jonathan Bacon at Surrey Provincial Court in Surrey, BC Monday, October 19, 2009.Photo by
Jason Payne

This story was first published in The Province Dec. 18, 2009:

Leading a violent criminal gang is costing Clayton Roueche 30 years of freedom, but he still has his mother's love and his father's pride.

Roueche, the notorious kingpin of the violent, drug-dealing United Nations gang, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. court to three decades in prison for money laundering and smuggling cocaine and marijuana across the Canada/U. S. border.

A number of Canadian citizens linked to Roueche and arrested in the U.S. before he was apprehended had provided information to authorities in plea-bargain deals.

"You gotta be proud of him, he never rolled over," his father Rupert "Rip" Roueche, 66, said Thursday in an interview at his Abbotsford home.

"That's why he got 30 years, because they couldn't break him. He wouldn't turn informant. Not like those other wimps down there, that took him down. If everybody would have been above-board he'd still be walking on the streets.

"If the rest of the world had his balls, there wouldn't be any problem."

The gang leader's mother said she would always support her son.

"I love him dearly," said Shirley Roueche, 70. "I'll never give up on him."

The couple are raising two of the gangster's three daughters, aged seven and nine. A third daughter, 13, lives with her biological father.

Roueche is divorced.

Shirley Roueche took the three girls to Seattle on Wednesday, and they visited their father for 3 1/2 hours after his sentencing.

Roueche told his girls he had a 30-year sentence but "there were things that could be done," Shirley said.

Roueche, 34, was captured in Texas in May 2008 while trying to fly to a friend's wedding in Mexico. Co-operation between Mexican, American and Canadian authorities led to his arrest.

To Rip, the multinational operation against his son smacked of totalitarianism.

"It was more like a Hitler deal than anything else," Rip said.

U.S. prosecutors introduced evidence that Clayton Roueche's gang smuggled marijuana, cocaine and money between Canada and the U.S. The operation launched against the UN gang, "Operation Frozen Timber," netted almost 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, 335 kg of cocaine, and more than $2 million US. Roueche was personally involved in violence, the prosecution charged.

"The group used guns, threats and violence to keep its contracted workers and gang members in line and to ensure that no one informed on the group's activities," the prosecution's sentencing memo said.

Roueche is an unindicted alleged co-conspirator in a B.C. criminal case against eight alleged UN gang members charged with conspiracy to murder the Bacon brothers, alleged leaders of the rival Red Scorpions gang.

Although Rip acknowledged his son headed a criminal organization, he said the allegations of massively lucrative smuggling are exaggerated. If the charges were true, his son would have plenty of money, Rip said.

"Where is it? He didn't have any money," Rip said, adding that his son went to jail with a $400,000 mortgage on his Port Coquitlam condo.

As for the violence Roueche was accused of helping orchestrate, Rip said the gang warfare the UN was involved in didn't harm anyone outside the underworld.

"There was no sign of them shooting any everyday people," Rip said.

Though Clayton led a drug-smuggling gang, he was no worse, morally speaking, than a street-level dealer, his father said.

"If you're in the drugs, you're in the drugs," Rip said.

The gang leader's parents believe their son didn't get a fair trial in Seattle.

"It was almost impossible to defend Clay in court," Rip said. "It was a kangaroo court."

The couple have hired lawyers to try to get their son moved to a Canadian prison, but U.S. prosecutors have vowed to fight any attempt at a transfer.

A lawyer once described Clayton as an "anomaly," his parents said, and when they looked up that word in the dictionary, they were pleased with the definition.

"He's one of a kind," his mother said. "Like a six-legged dog."

- On Sunday, Rip Roueche defends himself against allegations that he was involved in the drug trade with his son.

Clayton Roueche's parents describe how they raised him, and when they realized he was involved in the bloody gang underworld.

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